


Season Seven, Fixed

by DWEmma



Series: The Better Season 7-verse [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 08:22:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 15,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16657549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DWEmma/pseuds/DWEmma
Summary: This is a sequence of added scenes to most of the episodes of season 7, leaving the canon undisturbed until the very end, when I can't help but disturb it. The story is written with an assumption that the reader knows what happens in each episode, so go rewatch the season if you're confused!You don't need to start by reading "Yet Another Post Grave Shippy Fic," but that's the story of how they get together in this universe.





	1. Summer Hiatus Part One

Giles and Anya were sitting in her car in front of 1630 Revello Drive. The grimace on his face was a mixture apprehension and physical pain, though Anya was nervous that there was a tinge of regret in it. Regret that he was leaving her so soon, she hoped, not regret for those things they’d said to each other in the hospital, those things that changed everything between them. 

“I’ll call you in a few days, Darling. Let me concentrate on getting Willow settled and allow the coven to heal my injuries. And then, that is, if your powers allow you to, you might want to teleport to Devon? That is, if you’re interested,” and the shy fear she saw on his face almost made her laugh. So he didn’t regret what he said, but he was nervous that she regretted it. Well that did explain why it had taken them so long to get together. 

“That sounds fantastic, Rupert,” she said, his given name still feeling awkward on her lips. “And you can stop being so bashful around me. I told you that I love you. Of course I want to see you.”

“I’m glad of it.” And he gently leaned in toward her, and she met his lips most of the way to give him a long but gentle kiss. But with a little extra pressure of hers toward him, he moaned a pain-moan, not a pleasure-moan. 

She drew away from him. “I’m sorry. I keep hurting you.” 

“It’s all right. It’s worth it.” 

“Are you sure you want to fly? I could probably figure out how to teleport you there one at a time...”

“I think Willow needs the time in the air to process. But thank you.” He reached for the door handle, but then paused. “And Anya?”

“Hmmm?” she said, wrinkling her forehead to mask the tears she had been about to let go once he stepped out of the car. 

One tear slid out of her eye, and he brushed it away with his hand. “I love you, and I’ll miss you.”

“Yeah?” she sniffled. 

“Very much so.”

“Everything’s terrible, but you make me happy.”

“Well said. Though I think...and this isn’t my attempting to keep you a secret for any shame oriented reason, but I think we should keep this to ourselves, at least for a little while.” 

“Oh, I agree. They’re all juveniles, and they’d make fun of it.” 

“Ironically Dawn is the only one I’d be comfortable knowing about us.” 

“Yes, the annoying teenager is surprisingly respectful of the romantic lives of the people around her.” 

“Don’t tell Dawn, though.” 

“No, Rupert. I’m prepared to be your dirty little secret as long as you promise that it will be wonderfully dirty.” 

Giles swallowed a lump in his throat as he felt his blood flow orient itself in a direction that was not helpful in their immediate situation. He closed his eyes for a second and attempted to slow his breathing. 

“Don’t tease, Darling. I can’t do anything about it right now. And God do I want to. But I’ll see you in a few days once I’m all healed up.”

He kissed his fingertips and then placed those fingertips on her cheek, cradling it in his hand, and then got out of her car.


	2. Summer Hiatus Part 2

Rupert was standing in the lounge of the small cottage he’d been staying at in the coven compound. His body loose and pain free, and he was wearing a soft button-down and well fit jeans. He smiled at himself in a round mirror, and fixed his hair. He picked up the phone and dialed an American exchange. 

In her apartment in Sunnydale, Anya ran out from her bathroom dressed only in a towel, fresh from the shower, though her hair was dry. She frantically picked up her phone. 

“Rupert?”

“Anya, darling,” Giles smiled.

“Is Willow settled? Are you injuries healed? Can I come see you?”

“Yes. Yes. And yes. Any time that you...”

Giles still had the phone at his ear when Anya appeared right in front him, still clad only in a towel. He smirked, hung up the phone calmly, and waited for her to launch herself at his lips. She didn't disappoint. He kissed her back, this time hard and deep and without holding back. 

When she began to trail kisses down his neck, he drolly said, “Hello Anya. Did you even hang up the telephone on your end?”

“No,” she said, unbuttoning his shirt and kissing down his chest.

“Miss me?”

She licked up the bare skin of his chest and looked up at his face. “Every minute.”

“Didn’t consider dressing before teleporting here?” 

“Why bother,” she said, and dropped the towel. 

He took a step back so he could appreciate the view for a moment. It was better than he’d fantasized. He placed his hands at her hips and rear and lifted her up and against the wall, letting her wrap her legs wrap around his hips for support. He began to kiss her breasts. 

“You’re healed,” Anya moaned as he caught a nipple in his mouth. 

“I told you...the coven needed a few days. Was the wait worth it?” he said, trailing his hand up her thigh and teasing her entrance. 

“I’ll tell you in half an hour or so.”

“Oh darling. I plan to take hours to be through with you.” He pushed two fingers inside of her without preamble, and she moaned and pressed against his hand. “Demon healing, right? So you won’t mind if I’m a bit rough? I like it a bit rough.” He pushed three fingers in, forcing her back against the wall for leverage.

A wicked grin appeared on Anya’s face as she ground herself into his hand. 

“Yes Rupert. No more talking. Take me.”

He grined a wolfish grin, one that would almost scare her if she wasn’t so sure of his affection toward her. “I’m so happy you’re here.”


	3. Summer Hiatus Part 3

Giles postcoitally collapsed onto Anya in his small bed in the cottage. He was breathing hard, but his face was utterly transfixed. They were both silent for a moment. But just a moment. Neither of them excels at silence. 

“Rupert, that was lovely, as always, but you remain very heavy. Please roll off of me.” 

Giles laughed. “Sorry, Darling. You knocked me out a bit for a second.” And he pulled out of her and rolled off to her side, bringing her into his arms. 

“Yes, you do have the tendency to be knocked out, though orgasms are preferable to head injuries.” 

“I’ll tell the demons that, next time they consider concussing me.” 

She laughed her raucous laugh that Xander used to tell her was annoying, and he giggled and snorted in a very unmanly way. Neither of them were put off by this. 

“I might have chosen giving you orgasms over head injuries when I was a demon,” she smirked.

“Liar. Did you recall being at all attracted to the alternate dimension version of me before he smashed your amulet, or did you want to rip his sodding face off?” 

“Well he didn’t give me a chance to consider it. It all happened so fast. I recall that he was scruffy and badass though.” 

“Would you prefer me scruffy and badass?” 

She rubbed her cheek against his freshly shaved one. “No, I like you clean and waiting for me. Though speaking of, I might like you outside of his cottage at some point. As much of a pity it is to see you hide that lithe body under clothing, going on a date might be nice.” 

“Too much of a dirty little secret?” he asked, cuddling her body into his in a comforting way. 

“No. I just want...more of you. In different contexts. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Is there a pub in the village? Could we meet there for a pint instead of meeting here?” 

“Of course, Darling. I’ve just been very sex motivated these last weeks. I haven’t considering your feelings.”

“Oh, Rupert, you’ve considered all my feelings and sensations.” She gave him a wicked smile and kisses him. “I just want to figure out how to feel like more than just your lover.” 

“I would love to share a pint with you. There is a pub in the village. And don’t underestimate the sexiness of clothing. I’ve missed seeing what high heels do to your calves as they peak out from under your skirts.” 

“Your ass does look rather nice in a pair of jeans,” she admitted. 

“So tomorrow, about 7 GMT, at the pub in the village, I’ll wear jeans and you’ll wear a skirt and heels and we’ll try this thing of ours clothed, in public, and while not interlocking our bodies?”

“That is until I decide to drag you into the Ladies'...” 

His face was taken over by the grin that only she was allowed to see, and he dragged her face into his, kissing her with abandon.


	4. Summer Hiatus Part 4

Anya put on a pair of sky high heels and checked her lipstick in the mirror on last time. She’d chosen one of her modest but sexy shopgirl wrap dresses that she remembered drawing his eye when they had The Magic Box. Not that she admitted that she noticed his noticing her back then. But she knew. 

She teleported herself into the small village near the compound. She had found a map on Mapquest to help her with the coordinates, so she didn’t end up in some sheep field, her heels stuck in the soft ground. She chose to appear behind the pub, figuring that anyone behind the pub would probably be too drunk to process that she had just teleported. When she materialized, she walked around the corner to find the door. She peered inside, but didn’t see Rupert, so she waited by the door.

A few minutes later, he pulled up in an old sedan he borrowed from the coven. He parked the car, turned it off, and got out, walking to her maddeningly slowly and Britishly, finally kissing her on her cheek.

She raised her eyebrows to him in annoyance. 

“What?” he said, in mock (and a little real) annoyance. 

“I don’t get a real kiss? Our first real date as a couple and I get a cheek kiss?”

“We are out in public.”

She rolled her eyes at him and crossed her arms. “You’re so repressed and British, Giles.”

“Oh, so you call me by my surname when you’re miffed at me?”

“I think I do.”

He took a step closer and placed the knuckle of his pointer finger under her chin and tipped up her face, giving her a lovely slow kiss on the lips. She let her eyes fall closed at the sensation. 

He pulled away and looked at her. “Better?

She sighed, and opened her eyes. “Yes, Rupert.”

“Shall we?”

He took her by the arm and walked her into the pub. “So, Anya, tell me about your favorite historical period, ideally one you were alive during.”


	5. 7.1: Lessons

7.1: Lessons  
(Set after the brunch with Halfrek.) 

Back in the cottage, they were laid out on a comforter in front of a fire, since nights sometimes get cold in September. Giles lightly traced the curve of Anya's hip with his finger.

She sighed. “This is so nice. It makes me completely insane to think we could have been doing this back when life was good and easy, and we worked together every day, and I was human.”

“Are you unhappy as a demon, Anya?”

“It’s complicated. I’m certainly happy about the teleportation powers. And the fact that you can take a riding crop to my ass without leaving uncomfortable bruises on it.”

He gently stroked her ass in response to that, and smacked it hard. “That is a rather fortunate bonus, isn’t it?”

“So I’m happy with the powers. But the actual work...” She rolled away from him, staring upwards at the ceiling. 

“Vengeance isn’t what it used to be?”

“I like the helping women part. There are a lot of wronged women out there. Most men are terrible. And it seems that terrible men can’t stop dating! The problem is that I don’t like hurting them, even if they are terrible. I used to like it so much. But now...there was a guy, and I was supposed to turn him into a frog. That’s what my client wished. I made him French. He smelled really bad, but I know I’m not up for this.”

“Do you think it was being human that made you lose the love of the work or is it...” And he trailed off in a very un-Rupert like way. 

“What?”

“Us. Being in love. Being with a man who is only occasionally very rarely is deserving of vengeance.” And he grinned at her. 

She rolled back over to him and stroked his bare chest. “You are the only man I’ve ever dated who shouldn’t have vengeance rained upon you.”

“Thank you, I suppose.”

And she rolled away again. “Though maybe if I give you time, you’ll be as terrible as the rest of them.”

“You think?”

“Well there has to be a reason you were single most of your life, isn’t there? I mean, you seem wonderful, have so much to offer in and out of bed, but I never saw you date when we were working together.”

He propped himself up on an elbow so he could look at her. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m selective. And I had other responsibilities.”

“Saving the world, sacred duty, blah blah blah...” And she couldn’t stand the dejected look on his face and longer, and wrapped her leg around his hip to pull him close. “Plus you were so in love with your beautiful, but taken, employee that your eye couldn’t be drawn elsewhere.”

She gave him a devastating smile, and laughed at his inability to figure out how to respond to this. 

“I know you weren’t pining away for me the whole time, Rupert. I’m just creating a narrative.”

He placed his hand on her thigh so she couldn’t pull him out of the embrace as easily. “I actually believe we were co-owners by the time I realized I was mad about you.”

“How very respectable of you. No sexual harassment of underlings.”

He rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him. “Oh Christ, no, don’t put respectability on me. If I’m honest with myself, I’ve lusted after you since you were masquerading as a sullen high school student who hated me for the actions of my self in an alternate dimension. You looked every so much like every woman who ever turned my young self down when I was at Oxford. Much to my chagrin, those angry pouty lips of yours worked their way into my fantasy life more times that I’m willing to admit.” At this she pouted down at him, and he laughed. “Yes, Anya, that expression precisely. But it was only after our spell produced kiss where I realized you had my heart.”

She pulled up and looked directly down at him. “So you fled town.”

He let go of her and put his hand up in mock surrender. “That had far more to do with Buffy, but...yes. Though seriously, was I meant to watch you marry Xander? I had admitted to myself that you had my heart. I couldn’t bear to watch that.”

She smiled at him sadly, her lips pushed together in the pain that she felt when she remembered her not-wedding. She then let herself relax down onto his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. “I wish we’d talked about the kiss.”

“We weren’t very good at talking about the things that mattered, were we?”

“We are now.”

“Indeed. Well, I’m working on it, at least.”

“At least I’m good at this.”

“This?”

“Being yours. It’s the only thing I’m good at since we lost the shop.”

“You’re excellent at it. Best I’ve ever seen. Am I?”

“Are you what?”

“Good at being yours?”

“Rupert,” she scolded him. “I already told you that you’re the best in a millennium.” She sighed. “Maybe I’ll rediscover my love for vengeance. I’ll try. I should probably go to back Sunnydale and find some errant boyfriend to turn into a rat or something. You want to have sex again before I go?”

“Christ yes.”


	6. 7.2 Beneath You

7.2 Beneath You  
(after she undoes the spell) 

At 5 AM, GMT, Giles was sprawled asleep on his too small bed. Anya teleported in and snuggled into him to wake him up a bit frantically. He roared out in surprise as he woke.

“Anya what are you blasted doing here?”

“I just undid a spell.”

“You what?”

“A vengeance wish. I undid it. I didn’t want to get in trouble with D’Hoffryn anymore. So when a girl wished her stalker ex was a worm, I might have made him into a Sluggoth Demon.” 

“Might have?”

“I did. Same phylum. I just embellished. And he tore up some streets and foundations in Sunnydale, and he ate her dog.”

“He ate her dog? The poor dog!”

“I know! I said the same thing, and was told, by Xander, that I was a monster for being sad about the actually dead dog rather than the not dead but in danger girl. You get me! Anyhow, Buffy and Xander and Spike found out and made me change him back. I’m in so much trouble. And D’Hoffryn will probably, actually I don’t know, but I doubt I’ll be able to come here after he does, so I came here before he finds out.” 

Giles, still under the bedclothes, pulled his arms free so he could pull her into an embrace. “Anya you did the right thing by changing him back.

“According to your morality, yes. And that’s why I’m in trouble. Right and wrong are fluid and depend on what job we’re meant to be doing. Rupert, you know that. And if I have my powers limited, I can’t teleport, I can’t see you, and if I can’t see you, I can’t kiss you or have sex with you. And what’s the point of anything then?”

“I’ll come back to Sunnydale. Eventually.”

“When Willow is better?”

“Probably not then. I have some work I must do with the council...”

“So it might be months until you give me more orgasms?”

He stroked her hair in comfort. “God that sounds awful when you put it that way. I’ve gotten rather dependent on touching you. We’ll figure it out, darling. Maybe we can just fly you here.”

“On and airplane?” she said, completely scandalized.

“Yes,” he said, laughing at her incredulousness. “Modern technology and all that.”

“I’ve never been on an airplane. Is it safe?”

“Relatively, yes. Meanwhile, in case the worst does happen, let’s remind ourselves of what we’ll be missing.”

He pulled down the bedclothes and pulled her into him. She didn’t relax, but she grinned when she saw what was under the sheets. 

“Rupert, you’re naked.”

“I am.”

“You sleep naked when I’m not around?”

“Sometimes I do, yes.”

“Have you always done that?”

“Why do you think I always wore that robe in Sunnydale when I answered the door during sleeping hours?”

He finally distracted her enough to relax her. She grinned at him. “My new favorite fantasy is now coming to your door in the middle of the night and pulling the tie loose on that robe.” 

“I would have ravaged you, no questions asked.” 

She laughed. “You wouldn’t have. You would have stammered like a repressed Englishman.” 

“True. But then I would have ravaged you,” he said, and then he ravaged her. 

* * * 

In the early morning light, Anya gently shook Giles awake. 

“They’re calling me to Arashmahar. I can feel it.” 

“Do you have to go?” he said, taking her hand. 

“If I resist for too long, they might even come here, and I don’t want you to be dragged into this. I don’t know what they’ll do to me. But I don’t want them to do anything to you.”

Giles pulled her lips into his softly. “They won’t, um, kill you, will they?”

“No. No, that’s for much worse crimes than undoing a curse. I don’t know if they’ll keep me there for retraining. I don’t even know if I’ll be on this plane of existence. They could send me to another dimension. I may never...”

He cut her off so she couldn't say it. “I love you Anya. And I’ll wait for you.”

“Really? You’ll love me even if we’re not having incredible amounts of sex?”

“Why is that so hard to believe? I loved you for over a year before this summer, and I didn’t get to touch you then.”

She decided to believe him, if only to avoid a fight in what could be their last moments together. “I don’t wanna go. I just want to stay here with you. That sounds pathetic.”

“It sounds lovely. Kiss me and then go, all right?”

She let her lips rest on his, more of a promise than a kiss. And she disappeared. He leaned back in bed and wiped a tear from his eyes. He was proud he managed to not let it slip until she left. 

* * *

Rupert pressed the button on his blinking answerphone. 

“Rupert. It’s me. It’s Anya. They took away my ability to teleport for non business matters. I have to appeal to them for any trip I take, and they’d also forbade me to do vengeance matters anywhere in the UK. They don’t approve of us. They also...doesn’t matter, but that’s what demon healing is for, right? But I have to say, being whipped is a lot more fun when you kiss it better afterwards. I know I just saw you, but gods and demons I miss you. But anyhow, I’m not sure when I can see you next. I don’t exactly have the money for overseas travel. And I think they would frown on that dereliction of duty anyhow. I love you. You can leave me a message if you want, but I’m off to Brazil right after this. Vengeance calls. Did I say that I love you? I do. They can try to keep me away from you but they can’t take that. Okay. We’ll talk later.”

He sighed, picked up the phone, dialed her exchange, and waited for the beep. 

“Hullo, Anya, it’s Giles. Rupert. Sorry, I haven’t gotten used to using my given name in introductions, but I love to hear you call me by it. I’m so happy that you’re on this plane of existence. That I can speak to you. Well, currently your answer phone, but knowing you will hear my words. God I’m rambling. These machines make me so awkward. Anya, you take care of yourself. I don’t want you to worry about me. I love you, and I’m yours, and we’ll figure this out. All right. We’ll talk soon. Goodbye, darling.”

A few months later, she discovered that she never deleted this message, and became a little addicted to listening to it over and over.


	7. 7.3 Same Time, Same Place

7.3 Same Time, Same Place  
(after the episode) 

After the adventure with Gnarl was over, and everything went back to normal for all the real Scoobies, Anya returned to her apartment alone. She stripped off her ruined clothing, showered, and put on a silk robe. She looked at her phone. She sighed, and took a chance. She dialed, and prepared to wait for the beep, but he actually picked up. 

“Hullo? Giles speaking.” 

“You’re there! You picked up the phone. It’s you! Rupert! Hi!”

All the way in London, Giles' entire posture relaxed at the sounds of her high pitched excitement. “Hullo, Darling.”

“Are you busy?”

“Never too busy for you. God, I miss you.”

“So you sent Willow back. You didn’t warn me. Rupert, she accidentally did a spell so no one could see her, and she couldn’t see them. Well I could, demon, but there was this skin eating creature in a cave called Gnarl and...well it doesn’t matter since everything’s fine now, but why didn’t you come with her?”

“Skin eating...” he felt himself getting ramped up, but then slowed himself down. “Everything’s fine now?”

“He’s dead. We fixed it.”

“Then I needn’t ask. I didn’t come with her because I have some business with the council. I’m in London. That’s why you called me on the new line I’d left on your answerphone.” 

“I know. I mean, I figured. But it’s just not fair that Willow gets to come home before you do. You didn’t flay anyone.”

“I’m not being punished, Darling. And don’t forget, I am home. Sunnydale isn’t...it never really was my home.”

“But I’m here.”

“Oh Anya, you’re my home. More than England. But I have business I have to...I have responsibilities. You know that.”

“I know.”

“Take care of Willow for me.”

“Well, I did when she was invisible to everyone. We even did magick together to figure out what was wrong, which was terrifying.”

“But you trusted that I wouldn’t have let her go if she wasn’t ready.”

“I didn’t trust her. But I trust you, yes.”

She heard him pause, and perhaps someone speaking to him in the background, and the muffle of a receiver covered as he said something to someone else. 

“Darling, I do have to get back to work. But I need you to know that even though I’m distracted and far away, I love you desperately. That never changes.” 

“I know that. You’re pretty great yourself, Rupert Giles.”

“We’ll talk soon?”

“Yeah.”

“Goodbye.”

“Bye.”

She put the phone back on the charger. She then got up and poured herself a glass of his favorite scotch. She hates how it feels going down, but it’s the next best thing to tasting his lips.


	8. 7.4 Help

7.4 Help  
(Anya and Giles weren’t in this episode.)

Anya pusheed her way into a public phone booth near on a crowded Parisian street corner. She put in the right number of Euros (not her own, magicked up for her vengeance work and hopefully she can account for the discrepancies at the end of the job), and made a call. 

“Hullo, Giles speaking.” 

“Rupert!” she yelled, partly due to the noise of the busy intersection and partly out of excitement. 

“Darling why are you yelling?”

“I’m on a public phone. I’m in Paris. Doing some vengeance. You should come. You’re not far.”

“I can’t. I’ve got some research to do at the council. Something is looming.”

“From beneath it devours. I’ve heard. You should come to Paris. Most romantic city on earth, Rupert.”

“Paris?” he barked out mirthlessly. “Bloody well isn’t. Though any city is romantic if you’re in it.”

She laughs at his recovery. “You’re good.”

“I have my moments.”

“Do your reading on the train. Come.”

“Darling, I can’t. The books I need: they’re only at the council. I’ve got to be there to read them.”

“Steal them.”

“Steal them?” he said in such a scandalized voice that she rolled her eyes and changed her wording. 

“Borrow them. Whatever. I want to eat French cheese in a tiny bistro with you and get drunk on French wine and then do unspeakable things to your body.”

He licked his lips and considered if he had the strength to say no to this. It had only been a few weeks since he’d last seen her, and he’d gone years without sexual contact at certain points in his life, but the thought of licking wine off her lower back popped into his mind and he gave up. “Fine. I’ll borrow the texts and get on the next train. How can I find you?”

“I’ll call your mobile in a few hours to check in and let you know where I am.” 

“Darling, I think you’re bad for me.”

“Yes, you’re less repressed and British. Isn’t it great?”

And she hung up the phone and went back out into the Paris streets, looking for her target. 

* * 

A few hours later, her vengeance plans in order, she just decided to wait for him at Gare du Nord. Everyone who got off the train looked so completely British, but his lanky frame stood out among the other men. 

“Rupert!” she called out, and he saw her, smiled his secret smile he kept only for her, and ran toward her, picked her off the ground, and kissed her in a very Parisian love display. 

He placed her back on the ground, and just looked at her. “God I’ve missed kissing you. I was getting spoiled seeing you every day this summer.”

“Rupert, we saw each other every day for a few years when we had the shop. All day every day.”

He took her face in his hands, and stroked aimlessly, just touching her. “Yes but I wasn’t allowed to touch you, then. Touching you is magnificent.”

She stepped up on her tip toes and kissed him again. He pressed her to him, teasing at her lips with his tongue. She pulled away and laughed. 

She pulled him by the hand and began to lead him out of the train station. “Dinner first. Then bed. If we do bed first we’ll never get the cheese and wine I’ve been craving.”

“Have you done your vengeance yet, or am I getting in the way of your job? I don’t want you to get in trouble on my account.” 

“I’ve sown the seeds. She’ll make a wish tomorrow. Tonight is for me.”

“So on to find some terribly smelly but delicious cheeses and enough wine to make me giggle.”

“Not too much wine. I will need to make use of your penis later,” she said a little too loudly for what he pretended to care about in public, but he decided to let Ripper handle this situation, and laughed and slapped her on the rear. 

“Ever the romantic, Anya.”

She grinned back at him, and they went to find their pleasures.


	9. 7.5 Selfless

7.5 Selfless   
(after) 

Anya was huddled up under a bunch of blankets, a glass of scotch in her hand with the bottle next to it, and a bunch of tissues covered with her tears thrown around the floor when the phone began to ring. She knew who it was, only one person ever called her, but she didn’t react. When her answering machine beeped and she heard his voice, she didn’t make a move. 

“Anya? It’s Rupert. But you know that. This is the eighth message I’ve left since Paris, and I haven’t heard back from you. Darling, did something happen to you? Just know that I’m here for you. I mean, I’m here and you’re there, of course, and I might be across an ocean and a continent no matter which way you travel, but I love you desperately, and, well, metaphorically, I’m here for you. Darling just call me back. I won’t be naive and say that whatever is happening to you can’t be as bad as it seems, since I know that many things are worse than they seem. But know that I love you. Ring me back, all right? Christ, darling, I miss you.”

And somehow that was enough to get her to pick up the phone. 

“Rupert?” she said, in a lost and hollow voice. She was lost, but maybe he could find her.

His voice shifted to breathlessness, and she began to cry. “You’re there? Darling, are you all right? You’re crying. My darling Anya...”

“I’m not a vengeance demon any more.”

He paused, unsure of how she felt about this announcement and not wanting to put his own emotions into the reaction. “Oh?”

“A lot has happened. Bad things. Things that are my fault. Buffy tried to kill me.”

“But she failed,” he said, half stating the obvious and half wondering if somehow she died and was still talking to him. 

“Yes, she failed, you didn’t train her as well as you should have. Couldn’t even take down a demon.” 

He heard anger in her voice, but also irony. Like she was unsure of whether or not he should have trained Buffy well enough to kill her. “Well I’m glad of that, Darling. Never been so proud to be a failure in my whole life.”

She tried to laugh at his self deprication. It didn’t work. Somehow being human made human emotions harder to access.

“Had you done something evil?” he said, gently, trying to probe anything out of her to understand what had happened. And his gentle voice was what she needed. 

“I granted a wish. A bunch of frat boys were mean to a girl on purpose. Humiliated her. So she made a wish. And I summoned a demon that killed all of them. They deserved it. They did. But it was really traumatic for me and for the girl i was avenging. I’d forgotten about that. When they regret their wishes. How that felt when I was a new demon. It had been so long... anyhow, Willow found out what I did, and told Buffy, and she decided she had to slay me.”

Giles decided to breathe out his murderous feelings toward his former slayer so he could focus on what Anya needed. Anya didn’t need his vengeance right now. So instead of anger, he remained gentle and said, “But she didn’t slay you.”

“Well she stabbed me with a sword, so she did try, but you can’t kill a vengeance demon that way, so I’m not dead. And some other things happened that I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about. Things that were done to balance the scales, to undo what I’d done. Things that are my fault. I should be dead, Rupert. I’ve done bad things.”

“So have I, Darling. So many bad things. But we’re alive. And I’m glad you’re alive, Anya. I’m quite invested in your being alive.” 

“Even though I did terrible things?” 

“You still love me, even though I’ve done terrible things. And I wasn’t even a demon when I did them. There are very few things you could do that would make me stop loving you.” 

She began to sob. Loudly. 

“Anya. Anya do stop crying. You’ll make me cry. And no one wants to see that.” She laughs gently, and hiccups, and he starts in again. “I don’t want to put words in your mouth, and pardon me if I’m overstepping...but you didn’t seem happy as a demon. Other than the powers. I was also a fan of the the healing and the teleportation. But you didn’t seem to relish in your responsibilities.”

“No,” she sniffled. 

“Anya no matter what you do, you know that won’t stop me from loving you.”

“Buffy tried to kill me.”

“And unless there’s a major piece of the story you’re leaving out, I don’t believe her to have been in the right. The line in the sand between the killing of humans and the killing of demons seems a bit ridiculous to me, the longer I spend on earth. Ben and Warren were human, but their deaths took evil away from the world. But then take Clem. Or of course, you. I might have mis-taught Buffy to read in absolutes that shouldn’t exist. Of course, then she always makes allowances for Spike and Angel...”

“Are you sure you aren’t just making allowances for me because you love me?”

“Perhaps. But I love you because of your good heart. Thank you for picking up the telephone. I’ve missed your voice.”

“Why do you always know the right thing to say?”

“Do I? Well then this is a remarkable byproduct of knowing you very well and loving you very much, since I’ve spent most of my life as a bumbling fool, never knowing what to say.”

“See what I mean? That was perfect.”

“Well, thank you. Anya I must go now. Duty calls. You’ll be all right. Things take time.”

“When are you coming home?”

“To Sunnydale?”

“Right. You’re already home.”

“Soon, possibly. There are things I need to do, here. And I need to do them now. I love you. Talk soon?”

“Sure. Rupert, I also love you.”

“I know.”

They hung up, and she took a few sips of the scotch.


	10. 7.6 Him

7.6 Him   
(after) 

After the ice cream Anya went back to her apartment. It really was amazing how a week could change everything. She wasn’t broken any more, but this very confusing love spell thing had her very unsettled about her feelings for Rupert, and she now was flush with cash, and she should really see him so she could remember what real love feels like. So she picked up the phone and dialed. 

“Hullo, this is Giles.” 

“Rupert?

“Anya, you sound panicked. What’s wrong?”

“There was a spell. Things happened. The long and the short of it is that I have a bunch of cash money, and I’m going to use it to fly to England on an airplane and see you. If you’d like that.”

“I would. Very much so.”

“Great. The problem is that I’m a little afraid to spend this money here.”

“What did you do, Darling?”

“I was enspelled, so nothing is my fault, and I’ll tell you when I get there. My point is that I think you should buy me the ticket and I can pay you back after I exchange the money in England.”

“Darling...”

“Do you want to see me or not?”

“Of course I do. Fine. Let me call and get you a flight.”

“Business Class, please, I want to be comfortable.”

“You promise you’ll pay me back? I’m not made of money.”

“I promise.”


	11. 7.7 Conversations with Dead People

7.7 Conversations with Dead People  
(they’re not in this episode) 

Anya exited customs into Heathrow, feeling quite bedraggled. Who knew that airplane travel was so rough on a person? Teleportation was just a more sensible way to get around. She scanned the room, her eyes settling on the tall lanky figure. He hadn’t seen her yet, and she took a moment to appreciate the view: his long legs below those perfectly formed hips, the slightly messy hair, the slightly worried brow as he waited to see her. Then she walked toward him, he saw her, and his face broke open in his only-for-Anya smile. 

She snuggled into his body as a greeting, placing her hand on the firm muscles of his stomach below the small amount of padding, and sighed. “Air travel is the worst, Giles. I hate it. It’s one of the worst things about being human, after aging and death. That was literally the worst thing I’ve ever done. And I grew up before indoor plumbing.”

“Imagine how bad it is in coach.”

“It was uncomfortable and it smelled like the farts of strangers. For hours and hours. And now I’m both sore and tired, but I also haven’t moved in so long I want to run around. I felt like a sardine, even in Business class. How is a person meant to sleep when just slightly tipped backwards. Do they really think that the slight incline is more comfortable than straight up?”

“A mass hypnosis has lead them to think that, I believe.” 

“I wouldn’t doubt it. And the smells from the food they served? That was even worse than the tastes.” 

“Darling is your 1980s stand up comedy bit about how terrible airplanes are over so I can kiss you hello?” 

“Oh!” she exclaimed, and tilted her head up to find his lips. And all the horribleness from the flight melted away at the touch of his lips. 

“Right, let’s get you to mine. Shower, shag, small rest, then off to see London and adjust to the jet lag.” He grabbed her suitcase, and they headed off to get a cab.  
* *

They had been able to get out to the sight seeing a little quicker by combining tasks: they shagged in the shower. He’d always fancied it was a good shower for that sort of behavior, and was pleased to discover that he was right. And pleased to be touching her again, though they’d already learned that without her demon strength, certain upright positions were a little more challenging than they had been. It was fine. He was willing to learn through trial and error. Especially if it mean more trying. 

The National Portrait Gallery had been another inspired choice, due to the fact that nothing inspires fascinating stories about old acquaintances than seeing their portraits on the wall. And nothing keeps a jetlagged woman awake better than getting to talk about long almost forgotten details of her long life. Pity the foolish man who wouldn’t want to hear all of his lovely companion’s old stories, Giles thought to himself, while laughing at a story involving David and Eva Maria Garrick, a actor/manager and his Viennese dancer wife, his unfortunate wandering hands, a wish and a glamour Anya had cast that put a sheep in a very precarious situation. 

They had an early supper of a curry at the pub down the street from the council flat he had been staying in, one couldn’t really call his current lifestyle living with a straight face, before bringing Anya back to the flat to start living there, at least for a few days. She was almost delirious from jetlag at that point, but she put in a noble attempt at being an active and giving sexual partner. Mostly she just lay there while he worked out her travel kinks. But that was what a partnership was for: giving the other person what they currently needed. And he currently needed to touch her, to reassure himself that she did, in fact, exist, and was, in fact, in love with him, and she needed to be touched. 

It was 2 AM when he woke to find Randall sitting in the chair in the room’s corner, watching their curled together, staring at their nakedness. 

It wasn’t, of course, Randall at all. From all the research he had done in the files he had stolen to read on his Eurostar trip that he hadn’t had the opportunity to return to the council library, this was The First. 

“You’re not Randall. You’re The First Evil, so don’t even try to convince me otherwise,” Giles said to the spectre, his voice as calm and collected as he could force it to be. 

Randall-who-was-not-Randall let out his infectious laugh, a noise that Giles had almost forgotten through the haze of time. Giles glanced down at Anya, to make sure she was still asleep, and pulled the blankets up further to cover her modesty. Not that his darling cared about modesty, but it felt like the right thing to do. 

“You’re a clever clod, Ripper, I’ll tell you what,” The First said in Randall’s voice. “And impressive that at your advanced age you’re pulling hotter birds than you did when you were 20. Though we both know that you weren’t as interested in birds as you were in Ethan back then, were you.” 

“Is your strange implied homophobia supposed to upset me? I’m bisexual. I've had lovers who are male and female, and all of them have known this about me. I was in love with a very troubled man when the form you’re currently using knew me. And now, yes, I’m now in love with this magnificent woman. Try harder if you’re trying to get under my skin, or I’m going back to bed. I know you can’t do a damn thing to hurt me without help. So try your mind games elsewhere.” 

And Giles lay down in the bed and tried to settle back in. There was no way he was going to be able to fall asleep with the feeling of this annoying creature staring at him. He sighed, and realized that he could at least try to get information out of it. 

“So, what’s your game? Is it to shake me, to find out my weaknesses? Perhaps we could talk about some of yours. Obviously your inability to touch or hold anything or take form in any way is a weakness. Also your terrible choice of ghosts from my past to rattle me.”

The image began to shift. It started with the smile, like a Cheshire Cat, but then Randall had changed into Jenny. Giles attempted to not show on his face that this had been a better choice to damage him with, but The First knew, and used Jenny’s face to smile at him callously. 

“Is this face better? Give it a little time, and I’ll show you your naked little friend’s face, once one of my Bringers kills her. Or honestly, I might not have to bother. Word is that her former employer is sending his minions after her for fun. Turns out killing her oldest friend wasn’t good enough vengeance for him. He wants her to fear dying. Or to actually die. Oh, that will be fun. Then I can come to you as her. Do a little strip tease...”

Jenny who is not Jenny begins to unbutton her shirt, and Giles looks away. He looks at Anya, still dead to the world from jetlag, or maybe unable to hear the spectre’s conversation anyhow, and watched her very human breathing. He wondered if she had faced D’Hoffryn’s minions already and just not told her. That would be so like her, to leave that sort of thing out. Not that he isn’t constantly guilty of the same thing. Perhaps when they live in the same city they’ll get better at opening up to each other and letting each other know all of their worries. But with the distance, he understood why she would keep this from him. 

He looked back at the woman who wasn’t Jenny, the woman who wasn’t a woman. “Listen, I have nightmares more horrifying than this on a regular basis. I’m quite tired, and I expect that in the morning I’ll be woken up with sex, so I’d really like to get my rest to be at my best. So if you wouldn’t mind...”

Giles gestured that the spectre should just, well, disappear. She pouted, trying her best to be Jenny but failing just enough that it comforted him. “Rupert, you’re hurting my feelings talking about the woman you’ve moved on to when I’m sitting here, dead and alone.” 

“Oh for Christ’s sake, you’re not Jenny. Her death was tragic and thinking about that causes me pain, but you’re not she. So unless you want to do that hilarious villain thing where you confess your whole plot to me, get gone.” 

Jenny’s form laughed, almost capturing her actual laugh. “Watch out for my bringers, Rupert. They’ll make a real bang with the council.” And she disappeared. 

Rupert wrote down what she’d said, and rolled over and fell asleep. As he’d said, he’s had nightmares about his lost people that were far worse than what just happened.


	12. 7.8 Sleeper

7.8 Sleeper   
(the start) 

Anya had literally just gotten home after her transatlantic flight moments before Xander called her in need of a Spike babysitter. 

“Xander, I can’t. I’m not feeling well.” Like hell she was going to mention that she just spent all night on an airplane, since that would cause nothing but questions she didn’t have the answer to, and the last person she wanted to know about her torrid but loving romance with Rupert Giles was her petty former fiance. Or Spike, her torrid one time stand. Ugh, why couldn’t she have managed to sleep with people she wasn’t stuck dealing with later? 

“Oh come on Ahn, you owe us. And from what I recall, you like Spike a whole damn lot.” 

She sighed. It sounded like they needed her, and Rupert did tell her to be helpful to the Scoobies on all First Evil related matters. (Why he couldn’t pick up a damn phone and call one of them to talk about his findings was beyond her, but there was no making that man do anything he didn’t want to do.) So Anya sighed, and acquiesced. 

Her only regret was that awkward moment where she, to avoid possible death obviously, put herself in a position where she could have ended up cheating on Rupert. But she was pretty sure Spike would turn her down, and it provided excellent cover for her secret relationship, if she ever needed proof that there was none.


	13. 7.9 Never Leave Me

7.9 Never Leave Me

This message was left on an answerphone in the council flat that Giles had abandoned after his near death by Bringer and the council headquarters explosion, experiences that prompted him to not reach out to Anya when he headed off to find the first of the potentials. He couldn’t put her in more danger. He just couldn’t. Giles never heard this message. 

“Rupert? Now I’m the one leaving messages and not hearing back. Don’t be dead, okay? I don’t want you to be dead. Andrew is back. I got to play bad cop when I was interrogating him. It helped me deal with my anxiety over your going missing. Hitting someone bad feels good sometimes. Xander was good cop. He was actually nice to me. I mean, you have nothing to worry about. He’s still a child, and now that I’ve been with a man who can really satisfy me in bed, I don’t see him that way. But he’s actually nicer to me than he was when we were together. Which is nice. Rupert call me back. Please don’t be dead or concussed and alone or something.”


	14. 7.10 Bring on the Night

7.10 Bring on the Night   
(Set after Giles arrives with the potentials, before he goes out patrolling with Buffy.) 

After getting the potentials relatively settled in, Giles finds Anya, and pulls her into the backyard for a little privacy. 

“I’m sorry I’ve been out of communication,” he said, searching her eyes to gauge her emotional state. 

“You were saving those girl’s lives,” she said, not looking him in the eyes. 

“Yes, but I assume I worried you.”

Anya shrugged. She smiled a sad smile and attempted to look him in the eyes. “It’s part of your job. And I choose to be with you. So I can’t complain.” 

He smirked at her. “But you’d like to complain.” 

She swatted his arm, and gave him a real smile, though it was still sad. He’d worried her, the poor darling. 

“Well. I’m here now,” he promised. “Home.” He offered that last word as a peace offering. But she didn’t seem to take it.

“But you can’t kiss me because someone might walk out here and see.”

“Do you want to come clean to them? You’re the one who’s been here. You know if they can handle it.” 

“No. They’d just act like juveniles. They’d make fun of it. And I couldn’t bear that.”

He smiled back at her, his own sad smile on his lips. “I’ve got to go patrolling with Buffy. But I’ll come to yours as soon as I can.”

Anya reached into her pocket and gave him a key. “I hid a second key here just in case. It can be yours. If you want to stay with me.”

“Was there any question? Darling, of course I want to stay with you. I can’t imagine not. Though I can’t guarantee it’ll even still be night when I’m done here. But the moment I can, I’ll show you how not repressed and British I can be.”

Her smile was real in response to that, if a little mocking. “Rupert, you’ve been awake for days. Somehow I believe all you’re going to show me snuggling and snoring.”

“Yes, but you love my snuggles.”

“Go patrolling, British man. I’m glad you’re home.”

“I’m glad for it as well.” His eyes darted around behind them to determine that no one was at the windows looking at them, and then leaned in for a quick peck on the lips. He started to walk back into the house, but then he turned back and gave her a long hard open mouthed kiss. Then he nodded, and went inside.


	15. 7.11 Show Time

7.11 Show Time   
(first part is at the beginning of the episode, the night before Rona arrives. Part two is after the encounter with the eye.) 

Giles and Anya are in her bed, the bed she’s started calling theirs, snuggling post coitally. 

“This is nice,” she breathed out, luxuriating in the realness of his being in her world. This must be how he felt all summer. 

“Mmmmmmm,” he mumbled, still too drained to be a conversationalist. 

She understood that, and managed to stay quiet for 2 solid minutes before rapidly saying, “Has anyone even asked you where you’re living?”

He chuckled at her inability to just be silent. God he missed her prattle. “No. They just know I have a place to stay that isn’t in the house.”

“Right. They see you as old and boring and me as annoying and only necessary for my demon contacts. But little do they know, you’re giving me all the orgasms and making me happiest I’ve ever been...”

“Happiest you’ve ever been?” he propped himself on his elbow at that announcement at looked at her. 

“Yeah. Why?”

“You’ve been alive for 1100 years and being with me makes you the happiest you’ve ever been?”

“That’s what I just said, Rupert.”

He took the moment to examine whether he was, also, the happiest he’d ever been. “For me, this is certainly the most functional relationship I’ve ever been in. And once we beat The First, I’ll consider being happy.”

“It’s a real pity that we’re all probably going to die, isn’t it?” Anya sighed, realizing that her Rupert would never get to be happy. 

“While it’s true this is the worst we’ve faced, we do say that every time, don’t we? And we always prevail.” Giles wasn’t sure if he believed his words or was just saying them to be comforting and inspirational, but what did it ultimately matter? Either he was right or wrong. 

“I don’t want to die, Rupert. I’ve barely come to terms with aging and dying a timely human death. Or the fact that you would die your timely and human death most likely years before I will, what with men living so much shorter lives that women and your being so much older than me in human years-”

“Yes thank you for explaining that, Anya,” he cut in, though more amused than annoyed.

“I want to be with you so long that I see your hair go completely grey,” she said, reaching out and touching the grey at his temples. “I used to be so scared of getting old and wrinkly. Because I thought that my hot young body was the only thing anyone could love me for. But I’m not afraid of that with you. Because you love me. And you’re going to find me beautiful and sexy when my breasts are at my hips and you can trace my crows feet. But none of that will happen if the first kills us.”

Giles smiled at the image of his beloved Anya grown old, still next to him in bed, still wanting him and loving him in 40 year’s time, if he’s lucky enough to live that long. “Well I’ve had one thought,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Let me decide what I do or don’t like.”

“Beljoxa’s Eye.”

“You’re right. I don’t like it.”

“I thought you might have some demon contacts that...”

“No. I mean, yes, of course I do, but no, Rupert, that’s a terrible idea. First off, it’s dangerous to go to an internal vortex, and second, there’s no way of knowing if it will have any of the information we’re looking for.”

“But it might.

Anya attempted to show him how serious she was by getting out of bed and putting on her robe to cover her body from his eyes. “I think it’s a terrible idea. And I don’t want to do it.”

Giles caught her by the hand, and caused her to look him in the eyes. “You also don’t want to die.”

“And I don’t want us to die going into an internal vortex on a crazy goose chase, Rupert!”

“Wild goose chase,” he said, and then kicked himself for correcting her on the idiom. Who was he, Xander? 

“Wouldn’t want to do that, either. And if you tell Buffy about it, she’ll make us go. And it’ll be unpleasant, and scary, and might come to nothing.”

He sighed, and lay back down in the bed. He’d ruined their evening for sure. “I’ll keep researching. There’s got to be something we’re missing.”

* *

They exited the portal, with the usually associated feeling of getting one’s sea legs under them and vague nausea. Anya limps away from the portal as it closes. 

“Are you all right?” he asked her, trying to catch up with her. 

“Yeah, I just—I don't understand how Buffy's death mucked up the whole slayer mojo. You know, it's not like she hasn't died before.”

“It's not because she died. The Beljoxa's Eye was quite clear about that in its enigmatic way. It's because she lives. Again. Buffy's not responsible for that.”

“Oh. Oh. Willow and me and Xander and Tara. We're the ones who brought Buffy back. We're—we're the reason The First is here, the reason those girls were murdered. No, it's our fault. The would would've been better off if Buffy had just stayed dead.” 

She walked away, and he kicked himself for not putting it more delicately. In fact, he had forgotten that she had been involved in that folly, seeing as it was Tara and Willow’s magicks that had pulled off the resurrection, not hers. 

“Anya don’t,” he called out after her. 

“Why not? All those girls are dead because...”

“And countless other people aren’t dead because of things Buffy has done in the last year. Darling, it’s done, it wasn’t your idea in the first place, they still would have done it if you hadn’t helped, and if Buffy hadn’t died the first time, the slayer line wouldn’t be split, and I’m sure that’s a factor as well. Please. Please, darling, please.” He managed to get close enough to grab her by the hand, but she pulls it away and turns to face him. He sees the tears on her face. 

“I didn’t want to do this. I told you it was a bad idea. And we didn’t find out anything that will help us. Knowing that it was the resurrection? How does that help?”

“Nor will I tell anyone what we found out,” he reassured her. “It would destroy Willow.”

She laughed bitterly. “So Willow gets to be protected again from the consequences of her actions, but I...”

“Anya, you’re stronger that Willow. Always have been. We need everyone for this fight.”

“Yes I provide necessary sarcasm and demon contacts.”

“You provide more than that. For me, especially.” 

“Yes, and also orgasms. Thought apparently no one else is interested in those any more.”

“Yes, Anya we really should talk about your habit of offering sex as an incentive. Obviously it’s your body and you have a right to do with it what you please, but I’m rather...attached to your naked form, and I’d prefer it if you only offered your body to me.”

“I was just trying to help!”

“And you never consider my feelings when you try to help. Would you have gone through with it and had sexual relations with Torg if he had said yes?”

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“No. You never do. You just react. And manipulate people however you chose in the moment.”

Anya looked at him, completely shocked. He had crossed a line and he knew it. He didn’t even know why he said that. She could barely look at him as she turned to walk away. 

“Anya. Anya darling, come back. I didn’t mean it. My bloody temper...”

“I thought you liked me,” she said, shaking her head an unable to look up at him. 

“I do. You’re wonderful. I didn’t mean...”

“What did you mean, Giles?” and she looked at him, the intent to hurt him by calling him Giles flashing in her eyes. 

“Oh you’re calling me Giles, now, are you.”

“Well you’re being mean and repressed, so yes.”

And he gave up. He had an apocalypse to stop, potential to find, train, and protect, and he couldn’t let his personal life get in the way. “This is why I’ve been single most of my adult life. Anya, I have a sacred duty as a Watcher, and you’re been a distraction from that. I’ve tried to rationalize it. Telling myself that you made me more peaceful, and that helped me focus, but now that we’re screaming at each other in the street, I can’t deceive myself like that anymore. Anya, perhaps we should take a break from all of this, at least until The First is destroyed.”

“All this?”

“Our relationship. Our intimate relationship.”

She looked like he had just stepped on her puppy. He had to look away from her, off into the middle distance just over her head. He’d made a decision, and he was going to stick with it, and recommit himself to being a Watcher and nothing else. 

“You want to move out?” she asked. 

The realization of what he had just done hit him, but it was too late to back off. So he became the prim persona he took on when he first arrived in Sunnydale. It had always been a comforting crutch. “I guess I would have to, yes. Perhaps we let this progress too quickly.”

“But you love me.”

He closed his eyes at this, repressing the emotions he was feeling. “Of course I do. I’ve loved you for years. But the first...I’ve got a responsibility to these girls. And I can’t let my personal life get in the way of that.”

“But what about me?” She suddenly looked very small to him. She’d always been larger than life, so he usually forgot how petite she really was. 

But he forced his voice to remain uptight, none of his usual Rupert-warmth in it. “After The First is destroyed, if you’re still interested, I would love to pick up where we left off.”

“But Rupert...” She tries to pull him to her, tries to get him to kiss her, but he is unmoved. 

“I ask you to respect my choice, Anya.”

And there was the hot flash of anger he was waiting for. “Screw you, Giles. And not in the good way.”

And she ran off. And he didn’t follow her.


	16. 7.12 Potential

He left to get the potential. That's what Anya kept telling herself. He was coming back. He was coming back home to her. He was just off finding another potential. It's good the Dawn being a potential potential thing was so distracting. Because Rupert would be home, soon. And back in her bed. He'd change his mind. Anya was sure of it.


	17. 7.13 Killer in Me

7.13 Killer in Me 

Giles brought his mobile out to the back porch of the Summers home for a little privacy. He dreaded making this call, but if he saw her amongst people before having this conversation, he couldn’t guarantee what would happen. So he dialed the speed dial for Anya’s home line that he hadn’t convinced himself to reprogram, yet. 

“Hello?”

“Anya? It’s Ru...Giles. May we talk?”

“If you need to. Sure.” He could sense her eye roll over the phone line. And her coldness, as well as the heat of her anger. He was glad she wasn’t in front of him right now. 

“Anya, I need to ask, was the little staged event you pulled off, where you allowed Dawn, Andrew, and Xander to believe I might be The First...was it vengeance? For my breaking things off with you?”

“Well you did say you were mine forever,” she said, letting her fire out at him, but then she sighed. “But not really, no.”

“But you knew I wasn’t The First because of the insane amount of sexual and non sexual touching we’d done since I got back. Why did you let the others spin out of control like that?”

And she almost sounded like her normal self as she scolded him, “Rupert! I mean, Giles, we were keeping our relationship secret. I couldn’t tell them about the touching!”

“You couldn’t have said that I patted you on the hand once or twice?”

“Oh. Yeah I could have said that,” she said, but then her voice switched back to anger. “Maybe I would have thought of that if you hadn’t told me I was a huge distraction and abandoned me, much the same way that Xander abandoned me.”

“As I said before, Anya, once we beat The First, that is, if you’re still interested...I would very much like to pick up where we left off.”

“Oh you would, would you? I mean, if we’re both still alive. Because if we’re not, whichever one of us lives will have to live for the rest of our lives knowing we wasted the last of our time together being stupid and British and repressed.”

“Anya I’m sorry that you’re angry...”

“You’re sorry I’m angry? Well that’s useless. Or you just could be sorry and move back home and love me like you promised to.”

He decided to ignore the fact that he could hear her crying, and stand firm with his decision. “Well you got your vengeance. I hope we can move on from here. I have a sacred duty to-”

“You are a sacred doody,” she spat at him. 

“Very mature, Anya. Honestly, I never should have take up with you in the first place. You were too vulnerable and I took advantage...”

“That’s crap and you know it, Rupert. You love me, and I love you. Come and talk to me when you’ve come to your senses and gotten your head out of your own ass.”

And that was the first time Anya ever hung up on him.


	18. 7.14 First Date

7.14 First Date   
(after Giles takes everyone to task over being distracted over dating.) 

“You’re a hypocrite, Rupert,” Anya quietly spat at him. He pulled her away from the crowd of potential nearby before they became curious, and found himself, yet again, on the back porch. 

“You’re to call me Giles now, and how so?”

“Telling everyone that going on dates is distracting when you were in my bed giving me insane pleasure every night less than a week ago.” 

“Yes, but I rectified my mistake, so now I have the higher ground.”

“I was a mistake?” she said, her anger turning to angry hurt, but he did his best to ignore the hurt he felt inside of him for causing her hurt. 

“Clearly. You’re jealous over Xander right now. You told me were completely over him, but now you’re jealous that he’s finally moving on. Perhaps I was just a distraction until you found your way back to that...that boy.”

“Well maybe I wouldn’t have to be jealous if I wasn’t constantly spending time with men who have no desire to have sex with me. Spike, Xander, you...even Torg. I can’t give it away. I can’t tell you the last time I spoke to a man who wasn’t actively trying to not have sex with me.”

“Well there is Andrew,” he chuckled, but his joke only inflamed her more. Fighting with her was a lot less fun when it wasn’t going to end with frantic sex. 

“Andrew wants to have sex with Spike or Xander. Not me. My point still stands.”

He decided that fighting with her was only making him more distracted, so he tried to defuse her. “Anya, you know my withdrawal from you is primarily about duty, and is no reflection on a lack of desire for you on my part, yes?”

“That almost makes it worse.”

“There’s no satisfying you, is there.”

She grinned wickedly, and reached forward before he knew what was happening, tracing the top of his jeans with her fingers. “You know there isn’t. I’m completely insatiable.”

His eyes closed, as he focused on pushing out the images invading his brain, images of stripping her bare, pulling his cock out of his jeans, and having her right against the wall in the back garden, potentials and Scoobies be damned. “I’m not saying I’m not tempted, but I can’t. I can’t lose focus. If I do, girls will die.”

She was slightly tracing the outline of his hardening cock with her fingers as she smiled at him seductively. “I just think you were more focused when we were happy and easy and in love and well shagged.”

He pushed her hands way, resolute, willing his blood flow back to his brain, where he needed it the most. “Perhaps you’re right. But I made my choice. And I ask you to respect that.”


	19. 7.15 Get it Done

7.15 Get it Done   
(After Spike and Anya escape D’Hoffryn’s minion, but before they’re back at the house.) 

“Anya, Pet, don’t want you to think I’m about to bust your secret open, but I’ve been meaning to say that I’m sorry you and the old man are splitsville. And not only because it means that you keep hitting on me, right? You both seemed happier and less amped up when you were shagging.”

Anya looked at him in shock. “How did you...”

“Vampire smelling, right? Your smells were all over each other. I didn’t tell anyone. Especially not Buffy. Dear god would she freak out.”

“How long have you known?”

“Well at first I was confused. This summer, kept smelling him whenever you were around, even though he was across the pond. But then I realized that you must have been teleporting, yeah? And straight into his goddamn bed, from the smell of it.”

“Please don’t tell anyone. We kept it secret so that people wouldn’t get distracted, and then he called it off so he couldn’t get distracted. If you tell them, it will-”

“Distract them? Yeah. Figured that. Don’t fancy being yelled at, anyway. Not announcing I’m gonna tell anyone. Just here, as a man, a man who doesn’t want to shag you but wants you to be happy, telling you that the old man’s an idiot for letting go of happiness like that.” And he smiled his kind Spike smile at her, and it made her think about how much she missed seeing Rupert’s smile that he kept just for her. 

“Like Buffy let go of happiness with you?” she asked, wondering if she was humaning correctly, though less worried about getting that wrong with a vampire. 

Spike chuckled, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and took a drag. “Yeah, well, we’re in the same boat there, aren’t we. Still don’t want to shag you again.”

“Oh get over yourself. Hundreds of years of experience under your belt, and Rupert’s a better shag than you are.”

“Oy, that’s harsh, Demon Girl!” 

“Ex Demon Girl, again. Thanks Spike. And even if you aren’t as good in bed as Rupert, if you ever do want to have comfort sex...”

“You never let go, do you? Maybe the boy will shag you again. That would make old man barmy, wouldn’t it?”


	20. 7.16 Storyteller

7.16 Storyteller

After the sex, after she and Xander discussed how they should never do it again, Anya lay quietly in Spike’s basement bed and thought about how she got there. Was it Andrew’s interview that opened up that particular can of Sluggoths, and forced them to have a non shouting conversation about the wedding that wasn’t? Was it Spike telling her to sleep with Xander to make Rupert jealous? She really didn’t want Rupert to find out about this, though considering that they did it in the house, there was no way people wouldn’t find out. And if it would drive him back into her arms, maybe she didn’t mind if he knew. 

The lie she told Xander when he wanted to know if he was replaceable was what was sticking with her. All the things she’d said about his bravery despite his being an idiot (which she had obviously phrased in kind way) were true, but he had been replaced. She didn’t know why he didn’t want to her to get back together with him, or if maybe he did, but her insisting that it felt like goodbye sex made him lie as well, but she knew she didn’t want him because she wanted Rupert. And it wasn’t just that Xander’s sexual performance was weaker. Sex wit him was comforting, as usual, and she was looking for comfort. But being with him again made her realize that she hadn’t ever been happy in that relationship, but as a new human, she didn’t know the difference. 

It’s funny that the loss of him caused her to return to vengeance and the loss of Rupert had barely caused her to skip a beat in her life. Maybe she was more mature now. Or maybe she had always known that she wouldn’t ever find her way back to what she had with Xander, while, assuming that they both survived this particular apocalypse, she knew she could get Rupert back. If she decided to forgive him for being so cold and stuffy and stupid and British.


	21. 7.17 Lies My Parents Told Me

7.17 Lies My Parents Told Me  
(After the very end, where Buffy sent Giles away for the stunt he and Robin pulled on Spike.)

Giles stood at Anya’s door, completely broken. He held his hand up to knock more than once, but each time he can’t quite manage it. Finally he turned away, walking down the hallway. That was when she angrily pulled open her door.

“What are you doing here?” she spat at him. 

“Nothing,” he shrugged, continuing to walk away. 

She rans after him in bare feet, making her even shorter than she usually was next to him, and grabbed him by the arm.

“You can’t just stand at my doorway and...”

He slammed her body against the wall and kissed her hard. He was trying to push his pain away into the kiss, but failing. 

He pulled away for a second to catch her breath, leaving her room to talk. “Did something happen? Are you all right? Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” he uttered, pushing in for another kiss. He pulled away for a moment in typical Rupert fashion to check if his aggressive sexual advances were consensual. “Anya I’m sorry. Would it be all right if you let me in, and we did everything but talk? Is that something you’d be interested in?”

She jumped up into his arms, wrapping her legs around his hips and kissing him hard. He held her onto his body with his hand on her rear and stumbled them both back down the hall and into her door, kicking it shut.

He had no plan for how this was going to work, so when he woke in the early morning light, he extricated himself from her comforting and relaxed body, and wrote her a note. 

“I’m sorry for using you that way. I can’t do this. Not yet.” And he instinctually signed it with a hyphen and a G, not realizing that this was the most cold and hurtful way he could have signed a cold and hurtful apology note. 

After that, Anya did her best to put Rupert out of her mind. Find some comfort in Xander’s clumsy but well meaning arms. Try to enjoy the rest of her life before they all died. Because, while she knew Rupert was stronger and more focused when he was by her side, his idiotic belief that he had to be chaste Watcher guy to win the battle was all that mattered at this point. And she was tired of being rejected by him, tired of being hurt. Maybe that silent passionate time had been their goodbye sex. Maybe that was okay. For now.


	22. 7.22 Chosen

7.22 Chosen.

After the D and D campaign fizzled out, Giles was left cleaning up, with Anya is still asleep on the table. He glanced at the clock, seeing it was 4 AM. Still time for her to get a little more comfortable rest, if he prompted her to move somewhere where she could be horizontal. Not with him, of course. Just horizontal. He knelt down next to her, speaking into her ear quietly. 

“Anya, can I move you somewhere more comfortable?”

She moaned a little, and then leaned in, her eyes still closed, and kissed him.

He instantly found himself kissing her back. Then he pulled away.

“Anya, no. You’re back with Xander.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Because I’m scared. And I need someone to cling to. And you left me. Again.”

“I’m sorry about that. I never should have.”

“Never should have what? Never should have come to my place when you were sad and angry or never should have abandoned me after the rough but beautiful sex?”

“Both, I guess. I’m desperately sorry for how I’ve treated you. I still think my backing away from you and focusing on the first was necessary. But I’m sorry for how I’ve hurt you. And I’m sorry for me that you went back to Xander, even though that’s completely my doing.”

She clutched his hands to hers. “I’m afraid of dying.”

“I know.”

“I’ve been alive for so long, Giles.”

“I know. And if you’d like to, you might call me Rupert again. If the worst happens, I want to hear my given name on your lips one more time.”

“Rupert,” she said smiling at him, with love in her tone. 

“Just like that, yes.”

“Rupert,” she said again, this time sounding more like a quiet version all those times last summer when she’d moaned out his name loud enough he was shocked the whole compound hadn’t hear. 

“Christ yes,” he said, with images of all their times together flashing through his mind. 

And then she spoke all those images. “Kiss me, Rupert. Take off all my clothes and make me feel alive. I want to feel you inside of me and run my nails down your back.”

“Oh God, I want to,” he said, trying to keep his sense about him. “But all that we’ve done to hide this, this would be the absolute worst moment for us to get caught.”

“It’s 3 hours before 7 AM. I want to spend it with you.”

His face lit up with an idea. He got off of his knees, feeling an ache he didn’t when he was younger, and goes digging into a drawer, pulling out a lock pick.

“Come,” he said, grinning. 

“I plan to.”

“Trollop,” he grinned at her, swatting her rear. 

She followed him out of the house, willing to follow him anywhere. They went next door, and he began to pick the lock.

“What are we...”

“I don’t want to waste time going back to yours, and we can’t be in the house without getting caught. Everyone has fled the neighborhood. It’s fine.” 

“So you’re breaking and entering the neighbors house so we can have sexual intercourse in it?”

“Nothing I haven’t done before. That was a long time ago, though.”

“Ethan was a lucky man.”

He grinned at her. “Now I’m the lucky man.”

He opened the door and pulled her in with him, as she’s pulling off her shirt before she’s even safely in the house. 

* * *

Giles had been in battle mode when he had assigned himself to be with Robin Wood, but when he realized that would leave Anya with bloody Andrew, he reassessed. 

“No. Anya, you and Andrew are our least trained fighters. Robin, you take Andrew to the north hall. Anya, follow me.”

“Giles are you sure?” asked Wood, knowing that if Giles didn’t survive this battle, they’d be down a general. 

“Anya will have my back.”

“I’ll protect it like it’s one of my favorite of his body parts,” she quipped, without getting any laughs from her cleverness. 

“Right. Okay, kid, come with me,” Wood said to Andrew.  

“I’m honored to serve at your pleasure, oh noble son of a Slayer,” Andrew said, skipping down the hallway after Wood’s longer legs. 

“Whatever,” Wood said, not stopping Andrew’s adoring grin. 

“Come on, Anya,” Giles said, leaning her toward the North Hall. 

“You won’t find me too distracting?”

“I’d be more distracted not knowing if you were safe. We’re both going to survive this. And then you’re going to have to stop sleeping with Xander because once The First is no more, I plan on courting you. Proving to you that I’m worthy of your love.”

Anya rolled her eyes and smacked him on the arm. “Oh shut up, Rupert. You know I’m yours.”

* * 

And as the Bringer’s sword swung toward Anya, he felt his own life drain from him as Giles swiftly beheaded him. Her back was one his favorite body parts as well. 

That didn’t stop the Bringer’s sword from slashing at her leg. Not on a vein, not deadly, but it did require Giles to carry her out of the school when everything began to fall. Not that she minded one bit. She hadn’t felt this safe in a long time. 

* *

Anya hadn’t gotten out of the bus to look at the remains of Sunnydale with the rest of them. She didn’t want to see it. After Willow destroyed The Magic Box, there really wasn’t anything left for her in that town. Her only sadness was that Rupert had left his Tiffany lampshade in her care when he left for England the second time, and that was now lost to them forever. That and all of her heist jewels that she never figured out how to profit from. She also couldn’t walk comfortably, and wasn’t really ready to confront Xander with the fact that she would prefer Rupert help her walk than him. Though she knew that conversation would have to happen. 

On the bus, Giles was able to contact the Red Cross, and inform them that there was a bus load of sink hole survivors headed in the general direction of Los Angeles, and they directed him toward a motel that could be a place to stay, covered by donations. 

As they pulled into the hotel parking lot, Xander jumped up to be helpful. 

“Anya, can I take you up to our room?”

Rupert leaned forward to say something, but Anya caught his eye and gently shook her head at him. They had gotten very good at silent communication that fall, and he let up, knowing that she had to handle this herself. 

Among the chaos of all the potentials leaving the bus and Robin Wood needing to let go of his pride to let Faith get him off the bus and into the hands of the Red Cross workers, Anya quietly said, “Xander, we need to talk.”

She looked back at Rupert. He nodded. “I’ll see to getting everyone in the correct rooms.”

“Anya?” Xander asked, wondering where she was looking, if not at him. He sat down next to her. 

“Xander, I think there’s been some confusion. And it’s my fault.”

“What’s up, Ahn?”

“I think that my sleeping with you, twice, might have made you think that you and I have a relationship that we don’t. Not any more.”

“But we’ve been really good. And we survived near death. We’re getting another chance!”

“We did, yes. But you and I are getting another chance, not you and I together. Xander, have you ever fallen in love? Like you feel like you’re falling and there’s nothing under you and like your heart is so exposed that someone might just pluck it from your chest and you will just die?”

“That’s graphic and unpleasant, Honey. Love isn’t like that.” 

“Because I have. But not with you. When we slept together this year...I’d just had my heart broken.”

“Yeah, a year ago. By me.”

“Sure,” she said, in the most soothing and comforting voice she could muster, realizing how condescending she sounded but not having any idea how to rectify that. “You did disappoint me. And abandoned me, which was honestly the worst part of all that. But you’re not who I’m talking about.”

“Wait, Spike? You have feelings for Spike?”

She laughs out loud at this. “Oh god no. I mean, I do like the look of him naked, but no.”

“Well who?” Xander looked like a lost child. It would have been sweet if is cluelessness wasn’t so sad. 

“I’m getting to that. I sort of figured you’d have figured it out, so I hadn’t rehearsed that part. Also I thought we were all going to die, so I sort of figured I might never have to have this conversation with you. But we didn’t, so I just want to apologize for using your body like that. He had broken things off with me so he could focus on keeping us all alive. Which he did because he’s a big stupid idiot. He was less distracted with me than he was without me, in my opinion, but I mentioned that he’s a big stupid idiot, right?”

Ahn, I don’t understand.

“He left me, and I was scared and needy, so I feel back into you. But I don’t want to be with you. Not that way. Not now, when The First is destroyed, and I can be with the man who makes me really happy. Which is not to say you didn’t sometimes make me happy. Especially when it came to sex. You’re very enthusiastic. But when I’m with him, I’m happy more than just during pleasure moments. He makes me feel like I’m good at being a human. Which is ironic, since when we first got together, I was a demon again.”

“Anya, who are you talking about? It’s not Spike. It’s certainly not Andrew.”

“Cuz Andrew’s in love with you.”

“Not touching that one,” Xander said, blushing a little. Anya thought. Though maybe she was hallucinating due to the stress. “All the potentials are girls. Wood’s with Faith, I mean, kind of. Everyone else left town. That only leaves...wait, really?”

The look of horror on Xander’s face made her smile. She couldn’t decide if it was sweet or really sad that Xander never really saw Rupert who who he was in the seven years they’d known each other. 

“Rupert’s been in love with me for years, Xander. It’s why he couldn’t leave town fast enough after that spell. The one where we-”

“I remember,” said Xander, not wanting to remember. 

“It’s why he didn’t come to our wedding.”

“And you love him? Giles?” Xander still was unable look past his limited way of seeing the man who had stolen the heart of the woman he had maybe sort of kind of wanted to start things up with again. 

“He makes me happy, Xander. So happy. He doesn’t just love me. He likes me, too. He appreciates my honesty. We don’t have any experience being together around people we know, since we kept us a secret the whole time, but I know I want to grow old with him.”

Maybe that was too much information. Xander stood up, with hurt in his eyes. 

“Okay, then. Well the next time he leaves you for an apocalypse, don’t come crawling back into my bed.”

“I wasn’t planning on it. I’m sorry, Xander, I know you mean to hurt me with that comment, but you were always much better at hurting me accidentally than intentionally. And I don’t think you really want to hurt me right now. I don’t think you want to be my boyfriend, either. I think you’re just in shock and clinging to me like I was clinging to you.”

“But Giles? Really?”

 

“Really.”

And he had to look away when he saw the blindingly happy look on her face. There was some element to her smile that he had never seen before. It has something to do with ease. Her smile was relaxed, not manic in any way. But he still refused to concede. 

“He’s old!”

“I’m old! I’m a millennium older than him, Xander.”

“Yeah, but he must have wrinkles. In places.”

She sighed, getting weary of this conversation. Didn’t he stand up to leave like ten traded barbs ago? “Do you want me to describe what he looks like naked, Xander?”

“No!” he said, too loudly, the same way he denied the Andrew accusation. Why did stupid humans have to be so weird when it came to bisexuality? At least Rupert was comfortable with who he was. “No,” Xander continued. “No.”

“Then you know me well enough to know not to ask those questions,” she smiled at him, a bit evilly. 

“So you’re going to stay with him tonight.”

“Yes. And from now on.”

“And early this morning. When you weren’t asleep on the table when I came back for you. You were with him.”

“Yes,” she said, this time with pity, since now that he was opening his mind to see what he had ignored, he was going to see all the ways he’d been betrayed. 

“I don’t like this,” he said, as if this would make it go way. 

“Good thing is not up to you, Xander,” she said, a little snippily. “Are we done with this conversation? I think I’ve said everything I meant to say, and I’m still in quite a bit of pain after the stabbing, and I think I’d be more comfortable in a bed in Rupert’s arms than I am here. So...did we have this conversation? Do you understand that I’m with Rupert, now?”

“Rupert.”

“That’s his name, Xander.”

“I know! Yeah. We’re done. For real this time. Sure, Ahn. I’m gonna go find Willow.”

“That’s probably for the best. I’m sorry if this has confused or hurt you, Xander. But I’m in love. And I’m happy. And if you love me, you’ll be happy for us.”

“Sure. Whatever, Ahn.”

Anya limped off the bus and over to Rupert, who was handing out room assignments. She snuggled up into him, and he responded at first as second nature, and then with surprise.

He leaned down to her and quietly asked, “So he’s been told?”

“He didn’t like it. But he’s been told.”

“All right,” he smiled at her. “Room assignments. Just so everyone knows, Anya will be staying with me from here on out. We had a bit of a rough patch as of lately, but we’re through that, and I don’t intend to be a, what did you call me Darling?”

“Big repressed British idiot.”

“Well, I’ll remain British, but I’ll try to avoid the other bits in the future.”

Buffy’s mouth fell open like a Gill monster. “You and Anya are what, now?”

But Dawn moaned a giant dramatic teenage sigh. “Finally you’re telling people.”

Buffy looked at Dawn like Dawn had done something wrong. “You knew?”

“Well they were always super into each other. Especially when they ran the Magic Box. Anyone could see that.”

“I didn’t,” said Willow, who had joined Buffy’s side. 

“Really?” asked Kennedy, realizing that Willow wasn’t going to respond to her, but wanting to make sure people knew she had completely known about all of this. Probably. 

“Am I the only one here with eyes? And then when Giles came back this fall, I was pretty sure they were together. You were together right?”

“We were...” Anya admitted, honestly impressed that the annoying teenager was so perceptive. 

“And whenever they brought things up in public, it was like they had totally had the conversation in private before. But then I questioned myself. Because Anya was the one who pretty much implied Giles could be The First because no one had touched him. So that made me think that I was wrong: that they were still not admitting to being super into each other.”

Anya smacked Giles in the ribs. “See I told you that was a good cover!”

“But then when we got to the campsite, and she basically used us all grabbing him as an excuse to pretty much grope him, I figured that they must have been together, but maybe not since he got back, and now she was mad. And then they were both so good at staying away from touching each other, but always staring at each other when they thought no one was looking. It was really obvious. Was I the only one who saw it?”

Anya smiled at Giles. “You’re right. She’s very observant. She is going to make a great Watcher one day.”

“Thank you!” Dawn squealed, in that supersonic voice that only she can reach. 

“Dawn. Take the room assignment list,” Giles said, handing her the list. “Please hand out the keys. This is both a reward for your astute observational skills and a punishment for your inability to respect my privacy. Come along, Anya. Let’s get your wound looked at.” 

And they walked away together, him supporting her with one arm, their hight difference not making this awkward because they knew how to prop each other up. 

* * *

Later, all Red Cross cared for, Anya lay in their hotel bed, wearing a giant disaster relief donated t-shirt and nothing else. She watched Giles pace back and forth, and let him without comment, knowing that he was doing what he needed to do. 

“Darling, I know everything today has been really intense, and you need to relax, but I need to call the parents of the girls who didn’t survive and let them know.”

“Do you need me to leave the room to give you space?” she asked, looking around the room for some sort of pants she could wear to go in public. 

He sat down next to her, his eyes red, but not crying. “No, frankly, I need you to be here literally holding my hand as I do it. I know that makes me sound like a child...”

She took his hand in hers, and squeezed. “We’re better at this together than apart, Rupert.”

“Thank you, Darling,” he said, as he picked up the phone with his left hand, put it to his ear, and dialed. 

“Hullo. I’d like to speak to Amanda’s mum please.”


End file.
